Addressing the intersection of economic marginalization and environmental vulnerability by promoting land rights, green resilience, and feminist economic power.
We cannot solve poverty without solving the climate crisis, and we cannot solve the climate crisis without empowering women. Women constitute 70% of Africa's agricultural workforce yet own less than 10% of the land. This disparity is not just an injustice; it is an economic failure.
Equal pay, access to credit, and recognition of unpaid care work.
Adaptation strategies that prioritize the most vulnerable communities.
Without land titles, women cannot access loans, make long-term investments in soil health, or build intergenerational wealth.
Challenging customary laws that dispossess widows and daughters.
Advocating for spousal names on land certificates to prevent unilateral sales.
Training 50,000+ women to navigate land registries and court systems.
We reject industrial monocultures that degrade African soil. RFLD promotes agroecology—farming that works with nature, preserves biodiversity, and secures food sovereignty for local communities.
Protecting indigenous seeds from corporate patenting.
Low-tech irrigation solutions for drought resilience.
Training women to install and maintain solar home systems.
Recycling cooperatives turning plastic into construction materials.
Community-led conservation initiatives managed by women.
Reviving traditional textiles with organic cotton and natural dyes.
Financial institutions view rural women as "high risk." We view them as the continent's most reliable investors. RFLD facilitates Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) and lobbies banks to create gender-responsive credit products that accept movable collateral.
Women in our network consistently outperform traditional borrowers, proving that trust in women is the best investment strategy.
Using SMS technology to alert rural farmers of extreme weather events before they strike.
Distributing sorghum and millet varieties that thrive in arid conditions.
Women-led planting projects to protect coastlines from rising sea levels and storm surges.
As the world moves away from fossil fuels, Africa must not be left behind—nor must its women. We advocate for a transition that creates decent jobs and ensures affordable clean energy for all.
Replacing charcoal with clean stoves saves forests and protects women's lungs from smoke inhalation—a leading killer of rural women.
Decentralized renewable grids owned by communities, preventing energy monopolies and ensuring rural electrification.
Women spend billions of hours annually on unpaid care work—fetching water, collecting firewood, and caring for the sick. Climate change increases this burden as resources become scarcer. RFLD campaigns for the Recognition, Reduction, and Redistribution of this labor through public services and infrastructure investment.
Mining and oil projects often promise development but deliver displacement and pollution. Women bear the brunt: sexual violence in mining camps, contaminated water, and loss of farmland. We support communities to negotiate binding Community Development Agreements (CDAs) and hold multinational corporations accountable.
In many African cultures, women are the guardians of water. Yet, privatization and pollution threaten this resource. We fight against water privatization, arguing that access to clean water is a human right, not a commodity to be traded on the stock exchange.
Supporting women in fisheries to secure processing rights and protect aquatic ecosystems from overfishing.
African women have been adapting to climate variability for centuries. We document and amplify indigenous knowledge—from weather forecasting to herbal medicine—integrating this ancient wisdom with modern science to create robust resilience strategies.
Demanding a dedicated "Loss and Damage" fund accessible directly by grassroots women's organizations.
Ensuring the continental development framework prioritizes gender-responsive climate policies.
Competition is not the only economic model. We champion cooperatives, mutual aid networks, and communal land trusts. These structures foster resilience, ensuring that when shocks hit—whether economic or climatic—no woman falls through the cracks.
Africa contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions yet suffers the disproportionate brunt of climate change. This injustice is compounded by the historical legacy of colonialism, which structured African economies as extraction sites rather than centers of value creation. Today, this manifests as "climate apartheid," where the wealthy adapt while the poor—specifically women—are left to cope with floods, droughts, and famine.
RFLD’s analysis asserts that environmental degradation and economic marginalization are two sides of the same coin. You cannot protect the forest if the woman living next to it has no other fuel source but firewood. You cannot build resilience if women are denied the credit needed to buy drought-resistant seeds.
Our intervention moves beyond charity. We are building a feminist green economy that values life over profit, regeneration over extraction, and equity over growth. This is the only path to a sustainable future for the continent.